Penn State Weekend Sports Roundup

Penn State’s fall varsity sports teams produced a mixed bag of wins and losses this weekend. Women’s Volleyball continued its dominant run and Women’s Soccer eked out a win over Minnesota, but field hockey fell to Northwestern in overtime while Men’s Soccer was defeated by Indiana. Here’s a recap of all the weekend’s games:

Friday afternoon saw the end of field hockey’s seven-game winning streak, as the 6th ranked team (10-3, 2-1 Big Ten) was defeated in overtime by 10th ranked Northwestern, 5-4. Penn State led 4-3 with ten minutes left to play, but Northwestern’s Chelsea Armstrong, who ended the game with a hat trick, scored the tying goal along with the game-winner 12 seconds into overtime, handing the Lions a tough loss. The team has a week-long break before its October 7th matchup against California.

No. 8 women’s soccer (10-2-0, 5-0-0 Big Ten) followed up their Thursday night shutout of Ohio State with a 4-3 victory over Minnesota yesterday afternoon. Though Minnesota scored in the fourth minute and kept the game close until late in the first half, Penn State pulled ahead in the second with a 4-2 advantage, a margin that the Gophers were ultimately unable to close.

Junior Maya Hayes and sophomore Whitney Church both contributed a pair of goals, with both of Church’s scores coming off of corner kicks from freshman Raquel Rodriguez.

The team defeated Wisconsin in three sets on Friday (25-19, 25-21, 25-7), numbers that should speak for themselves. The Badgers could never quite keep pace with the Nittany Lions, who ended the game with a stifling third set, allowing just seven points.

Micha Hancock followed up her Big Ten Co-Setter of the Week award with another strong performance, while junior Deja McClendon–who was sitting at 998 career kills last game–surpassed the 1,000 kills milestone with a team high 14 against the Badgers. For the night, the Lions totaled 54 kills, five aces, 56 digs, and 8 total team blocks.

On Saturday, the women’s volleyball team knocked off No. 10 Minnesota with yet another dominant performance, with set scores of 25-23, 25-8, 25-20. Twice in the first set, the Gophers closed the margin to one, but a kill by junior Katie Slay ended the Gopher’s closest chance of the night at avoiding the sweep. After a relatively uncontested second set, Minnesota came within two late in the third, though sophomore Nia Grant quickly ended any hope of a comeback with three consecutive kills to close out the set and match for the Nittany Lions.

20th ranked men’s soccer (6-3-1, 1-1-0 Big Ten) was dropped by No. 10 Indiana, who scored with 4:57 remaining in the second overtime period. Senior Hasani Sinclair barely missed on a 15 yarder two minutes into the first overtime period, but the Hoosiers ultimately took the game on a goal from midfielder Harrison Petts.